Who's Afraid of Hasan Piker?

Summary

Diabolical Lies
Episode: Who's Afraid of Hasan Piker?
Hosts: Katie Gatti Tassin & Caro Claire Burke
Date: April 19, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode explores the political and cultural phenomenon of Hasan Piker, a prominent Twitch streamer and leftist commentator, contextualizing his influence within the Democratic Party’s ongoing struggle to reach younger and more male audiences post-2024. Katie and Caro dissect the reactions of Democratic strategists and donors to their electoral defeat, specifically their attempts to manufacture their own “liberal Joe Rogan” and the resultant influencer industry, touching on controversies like the Chorus Creators Fund. The tone is smart, unapologetically irreverent, and laced with sardonic humor.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Hasan Piker’s Rise & Allure

• Why Hasan is a Flashpoint
  • Caro introduces Hasan as a “socialist political and cultural commentator zaddy” who “has struck fear into the hearts of Democratic consultants all around the world” with a rap sheet, according to politicos, as anti-Semitic, anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-woman ([01:23]).
• Physical Presence & Thirst Factor
  • The hosts note how Hasan’s attractiveness is both an asset and a fixation:

    "The thing that you and I are kind of hinting at…but should just be stated explicitly, is that Hasan Piker is extremely hot. And this is something that people really fixate on…big buff hot dude who codes very, bro. He looks like a big buff frat dude, but he's talking about leftist issues and that has contributed to his rise. Kind of like you and I, two hot girls talking about politics." (A, [02:36])

  • Katie adds, "he’s six foot four, which is a full three inches shorter than Caroline’s husband" ([03:19]).
• Political Edge
  • Katie observes: “He is very anti-imperialist. He's obviously very anti Zionist…just conflating that with anti Semitism.” ([01:56])

2. Democratic Party’s Identity Crisis Post-2024

• Election Aftermath & Think Pieces
  • The hosts touch on how Democrats, after Trump’s second win, debated if their focus on identity politics lost them the race, with Caro snarking about the narrative that the party gave “too many rights” to trans people ([03:54]).
  • Caro: "We've covered on this podcast that the whole idea that the Democratic Party is responsible for the controversy over trans rights is total bullshit. Like the Republican Party astroturf, that…When in fact, Democrats didn't talk about it all." ([04:17])
• Quotes from Party Leaders
  • Katie reads from a Politico piece ([05:10]):

    “Our best path…is to win the votes of the overwhelming number of working people and to be known as the party of the everyday person first.” – Greg Cesar

  • Caro ridicules the banality of this:

    “It's such a nothing burger statement. He's like, we should talk to Americans.” ([06:22])

• Identity vs. Class Politics
  • Katie pushes back against the “drop identity politics” line:

    “Identity politics is politics…Even class politics are a form of identity politics.” ([08:02])

3. Media & Messaging Meltdown

• The Search for a ‘Liberal Joe Rogan’
  • Caro mocks the desperation and cynicism in Democratic circles to imitate the right’s influencer success with a “$20 million strategic plan to fund research for the manosphere” ([09:20]).
  • Deadpan moments:

    “Give me 10 of it. I'll boil it down in five minutes for you.” (B, [09:30])

• Chorus, And Media, & Paid Influencers
  • The NYT covers Democratic efforts to bankroll an influencer army; Katie reads:

    “...proposals…to help Democrats...‘find the next Joe Rogan.’ The first out of the gate has been Chorus…” ([09:51])

  • Caro lampoons the consultant-jargon of “And Media," for which the goal is:

    “Achieve narrative dominance…Hoping to move away from the, quote, current didactic hall monitor style of Democratic politics that turns off younger audiences.” ([11:31])

4. Flaws in the Influencer Industrial Complex

• Caro & Katie’s Skepticism
  • Katie’s critique:

    “If you are going to raise $70 million a year, you should just go fucking buy the senators at that point. You don't have to do any of this shit.” ([13:23])

  • Caro emphasizes the central problem:
    1. Moneyed donors always want something in return, i.e., special interests skew the project.
    2. "Manufacturing" influencers misses why people like Rogan or Kirk succeed; authenticity and parasocial connections are organic, not bought ([13:50]).
    3. "…the people that listen to our shit probably care about politics more than like your average person does. We aren't reaching the swing voter." (B, [14:51])
  • Caro:

    “You cannot buy talent…Democrats can only describe what they don’t want to be…they have no fucking clue what turns on younger audiences.” ([16:02])

5. Exposing the Chorus Creators Fund

• The Taylor Lorenz/Wired Report
  • Caro gives a concise background:
    • Chorus was funded by dark money (1630 Fund), and influencers were accused of being paid up to $8k/month to amplify Democratic messaging ([18:16]).
    • Influencers denied secrecy and errors; Lorenz & Wired stood by the report ([19:13]).
  • The real debate: Does it matter if leftist influencers are paid? Should we care about disclosure, funding sources, and the risk of astroturfing?

    “Yeah, it's like, well, the right does this all the time.” (B, [19:46]) “But…if you don't know where the money is coming from, you don't know who is actually driving the ship here and whose agenda this ultimately serves, which feels…relevant.” (B, [19:53])

• Concluding Synthesis
  • Caro: "These are the influencers that…the Democratic Party has been looking for. Right. These are the ones who are spreading the message." ([20:08])

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Caro Burke: “Hasan Piker walked so Riley could climb.” ([03:24])
• Katie Gatti Tassin:

  "If you are going to raise $70 million a year, you should just go fucking buy the senators at that point." ([13:23])

• Caro Burke:

  "You cannot buy talent...they have no fucking clue what turns on younger audiences." ([16:02])

• On Political Strategies:

  “Kitchen table issues.” ([09:18]) (Sardonic mimicry of consultant talking points)

• On Influence:

  "Most people in the manosphere are just guys talking…Democrats cannot describe what they want to be. They can only describe what they do not want to be.” ([15:01])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:23] – Introduction to Hasan Piker and his significance
• [03:24] – Physicality and perception of Hasan Piker
• [04:17] – Post-2024 election Democratic soul-searching about identity politics
• [05:10] – Greg Cesar’s quote; discussion of bland political messaging
• [09:18] – The “liberal Joe Rogan” plan
• [09:51] – The Democratic influencer arms race: coverage of Chorus
• [13:23] – Katie’s infamous “just buy the senators” quip
• [15:01] – Caro on the impossibility of manufacturing authentic influencers
• [18:16] – Recap of the Chorus Creators Fund and the Taylor Lorenz exposé
• [19:53] – Debate over the ethics and transparency of paid influence

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Tone & Style

The hosts maintain a blend of deadpan and pointed skepticism, frequently skewering the political class and establishment liberalism’s “consultant speak.” Their digressions —celebrating Hasan’s sex appeal, mocking consultant jargon, or riffing on the commodification of online influence— are sharp, witty, and irreverently self-aware.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode provides a high-level but deep-dive critique of the contemporary progressive messaging ecosystem, using Hasan Piker as a case study to lampoon the Democratic Party’s attempts to manufacture organic influence. The hosts argue that political authenticity cannot be purchased, and influencer-driven culture wars on both sides are warped by moneyed interests. It’s a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of politics, new media, and generational divides — with plenty of laughs along the way.

Transcript

[A]

Today's episode of Diabolical Lies is brought to you by Twitch, Gen Z, Cory Booker, aipac, Ezra Klein, Charlie Kirk, Joe Rogan, the Chorus Creators Fund, and Katie's Burning loins today.

[B]

Gang's all here. Gang is all here.

[A]

Before we get into it though, Katie, just some quick housekeeping. I want to thank everyone for their support of me in my first week of yesteryear. I have not been in our chat or really on substack, but Katie has kept me apprised of some of the nice things people have said and I've gotten a bunch of DMs and met so many liars at our events. Katie and I did a live event in Austin and it was so much fun and it's just really cool to meet people in person because I think we are very often screaming into the void and it can feel weird to engage with listeners online. But meeting so many of you in person has just been rad. It's been so rad. So I just wanted to thank everyone

[B]

and I would like to give a special shout out to the R. Tradwives subreddit, the supportive space for Tradwives, who did a review thread of the book and unanimously loved it and said that their takeaway was that it was a cautionary tale about marrying a weak willed man. Maybe my favorite feedback you've gotten so far.

[A]

Yeah, seriously, I love it. I'm obsessed with it. Okay, Katie, today we're talking about Hasan Piker. Hasan is a popular Twitch streamer and socialist political and cultural commentator zaddy who has struck fear into the hearts of Democratic consultants all around the world in the last month. He is, according to those consultants and politico wonks, anti semitic, anti American, anti Western and anti woman. And if he isn't stopped, he is going to. Let me see here. Destroy the Democratic party and or the entire world. Katie, what do you know about Hasan?

[B]

Hasan Duan Piker, baby. Where do I start? All I know about Hasan Piker that is really relevant to this conversation is that when Charlie Kirk got killed, I watched Hasan Stream for eight hours a day for like a week. I think the biggest thing about Hasan Piker that makes these people uncomfortable is that he is very anti imperialist. He's obviously very anti Zionist. Is my understanding of the current beef is that it sort of comes down to his anti Zionism and just conflating that with anti Semitism.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I haven't been following it super closely, honestly.

[A]

Yeah. So there has been a massive meltdown about Hasan Piker. The thing that you and I are kind of hinting at, but should just be stated explicitly, is that Hasan Piker is extremely hot. And this is something that people really fixate on. Like, that is part of his allure. He's gotten GQ profile spreads. He is very much like a thirst trap kind of guy. And in a world where politics are often, let's say, dominated by like pasty white dudes who are five, six, no shade, but let's call a spade a spade. He's like a big, buff hot dude who codes very, bro. He looks like a big buff frat dude, but he's talking about leftist issues and that has contributed to his rise. Kind of like you and I, two hot girls talking about politics.

[B]

Yeah, he's six foot four, which is a full three inches shorter than Caroline's husband.

[A]

It's true. It's true. Hasan Piker walked so Riley could climb. Okay, so today we're going to talk about Hassan Piker. Mostly as a means of making you blush for two hours straight, Katie. But in order to do so, God damn it, we need to go back in time to 2024 in those sad months where Democrats were trying to offer explanations for why Trump won a second term. Katie, do you remember the self proclaimed awakening that the Democratic Party went through about identity politics after Trump won the second term?

[B]

Oh, that trans people had too many rights. That one.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. We had spent too much time on the trans folks.

[B]

If. What if Liz Cheney was too far left for our base?

[A]

Yes. This was when, after Kamala Harris's political campaign where she was like, Gaza who? I love guns and Liz Cheney endorsed me.

[B]

I have a Glock.

[A]

They were like, too far left. Too far left. We've covered on this podcast that the whole idea that the Democratic Party is responsible for the controversy over trans rights is total bullshit. Like the Republican Party astroturf, that they spent hundreds of millions of dollars making people care about trans rights and then claiming that Democrats were talking about it nonstop, when in fact, Democrats didn't talk about it all. Kamala Harris did. Not about trans people during her campaign. But regardless, what happened after Trump won his second term was there was this whole flurry of think pieces and conversations where people were saying we needed to reorient. Right. So I'm going to have you read a few of these, including this Politico piece that talks about Greg Cesar, a Texas House rep who has recently made chair of the Progressive Congressional Caucus. He made a big stink about this, I think early 2025. And I want you to read it.

[B]

It's a notable departure from the approach the progressive wing of the Democratic Party had in recent years when it wrapped itself in slogans like Abolish ice, incredibly popular position, by the way, and defund the police while demanding ideological purity on a range of issues during the 2020 presidential primary, it also comes as Democrats confront a deep brand problem. You don't say. With public and private polling and focus groups showing voters believe it is weak, overly focused on diversity and the elites, quote, our best path to being able to defend vulnerable people and take on righteous, but maybe not yet popular causes is to win the votes of the overwhelming number of working people and to be known as the party of the everyday person first. Cesar said in an interview in his congressional office, quote, I believe that progressives need to make sure that we are connecting our causes to the broadest base of people possible, end quote. To win again, Democrats must, quote, make sure that the central brand speaks to everyone. Cesar said, yeah, yeah. You mean like broadly? Yes, of course.

[A]

It's such a nothing burger statement. He's like, we should talk to Americans.

[B]

It is. It's kind of like, I manage billionaires money by not losing their money and that's my secret. You're like, all right, yeah, I bet, right?

[A]

So during this time, a number of other heavy hitters talk this way as well. Like Pete Buttigieg, who is certainly gearing up for a presidential run, was talking about the need to drop identity politics. He said something similar to this guy being like, we got to care about the identities by not talking about the identities and whatever. Gavin Newsom started a podcast and brought on Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon, Newt Gingrich, Jane Fonda, Ken Burns and others at al, if you will.

[B]

Huh.

[A]

As a means of, I don't know, crossing the aisle.

[B]

I feel, can I just say, like, there is a version of that argument that I would agree with, which is like, yes, in our current paradigm, if you will, identity politics often serve as a way to distract from class based politics by getting people to focus on, on other issues, basically, that are more easily co opted by corporations. And so in that respect, I would agree that like, yes, this can be a problem because it's distracting from essentially the more inconvenient conclusion that you could be drawing right now, which is that something actually meaningfully needs to change about the balance of power in this country. But I have a feeling that that's not what these people mean when they say we shouldn't be talking about identity politics.

[A]

Right. And also, I mean, identity politics is politics like I. It's a total nonsensical term. Even class politics are a form of identity politics. If you're talking about a certain class of people, you are in essence talking about an identity. Anyways, the whole general message from Democrats as Trump was gearing up to literally destroy the Constitution was we got too woke. We need to quit with the urge for purity politics. We need to focus on a message of economic populism. So I think a lot of people like you and me might have been like, okay, cool. Like, I don't know if you're gonna get all the way, but like, yeah, actually focusing on a message of economic populism might get us somewhere.

[B]

We negotiated the price of 20 pharmaceuticals.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Please clap.

[A]

They also recognized the crucial outcome, which is that they lost young men. Young men under 45 swung 16 points to Trump compared to 2020. They voted for him with a 28 point margin in 2024. And so then there was this whole thing of like, we need a liberal Joe Rogan. Okay? That's what we need. We need someone who's talking to young men. We know what we need. We need a message of economic populism. We're going to stop talking about trans people. We're going to start talking about real Americans. And we need a liberal Joe Rogan.

[B]

Kitchen table issue.

[A]

Kitchen table issues. There were rumors of a $20 million strategic plan to fund research for the manosphere. Can you imagine that? That's where your money goes.

[B]

Give me 10 of it. I'll boil it down in five minutes for you.

[A]

Okay, I'm gonna have you read this New York times coverage from May 2025.

[B]

Okay, I'm already annoyed.

[A]

And this was an article about, like, the effort to fund a new wave of influencers and people in the social media space to fix this messaging problem.

[B]

Well, and we know where that went. Okay? Six months after the Democratic Party's crushing 2024 defeat, the party's mega donors are being inundated with overtures to spend millions of dollars to develop an army of left leaning online influencers, which, by the way, will put my ach info in the show notes if y' all want to float some of that our way. At donor retreats and in pitch documents seen by the New York Times, liberal strategists are pushing the party's rich backers to reopen their wallets for a cavalcade of projects to help Democrats, as the cliche now goes, quote, find the next Joe Rogan. The proposals, the scope of which has not been previously reported, are meant to energize glum donors and persuade them that they can compete culturally with President Trump if only they can throw enough money at the problem. The first out of the gate has been Chorus.

[A]

Yes, we are finally going to talk about chorus.

[B]

All right, Chorus Rolls Up Sleeves, a well publicized liberal nonprofit group co founded by the Democratic influencer Brian Tyler Cohen. But others have stayed under wraps until now. In November, Ms. McBride and other liberal operatives gathered in Washington for a series of meetings to survey the election wreckage at the headquarters of American Bridge, one of the largest Democratic donor networks. They eventually hatched a plan for a for profit media company called and Media, which stands for this is so like,

[A]

it's so Democrat lobbyist Coded.

[B]

It's so good. It's honestly, it's kind of. It's Pete Buttigieg McKins resurrected Playbook coded. Quote, achieve narrative dominance. The company incorporated in March says it is aiming to raise $45 million over the next four years. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Meanwhile, meanwhile, you've got like Theo Vaughn on the other side who just like sits in his garage and talks to people about doing coke trips over his

[A]

shoelaces on the way to the podcast microphone.

[B]

How did he do it right? How did he. How did he sway. The election is just so good to be like, we need a focus group. Okay. The company incorporated in March, says it is aiming to raise $45 million over the next four years. The group hopes to have a $70 million budget over that timeframe, based on predictions of $25 million in revenue. It says it has raised $7 million so far. Ms. McBride and. Okay. Oh my God, there are so many. I have so many thoughts. Let me try to get through this. Ms. McBride and Christian Tom, who led digital strategy for the Biden White House, have pitched the company to American Bridge donors as a broad cultural project, hoping to move away from the, quote, current didactic hall monitor style of Democratic politics that turns off younger audiences. Slay and Media will focus on direct. This is another abundance drop. And Media will focus on directly funding influencers and co producing their content, opening a creator talent agency and starting by quote, inking deals with four flagship creators according to a business plan shared with the Times. Okay, okay.

[A]

All right, give me your thoughts. Number one, Katie's agitated. Katie's activated.

[B]

If you are going to raise $70 million a year, you should just go fucking buy the senators at that point. You don't have to do any of this shit. Just do what the Republican Party is doing and Just buy the Congress people.

[A]

Cory Booker can be bought for much less. We'll talk about that later.

[B]

Literally, I'm like, we know that a senator in Texas costs what, half a million?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You don't have to do this whole roundabout, we need influencers thing.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Number two, the nature of that money and the size, those donors are gonna want something in return for that money. Who are donors? More often than not, they are associated with corporate interests. So, like, right away you are making a Faustian bargain. There's no way these are just altruistic people who are going to hand you a $10 million check and don't care what happens to it. They have interests. Right. This is the entire problem with like, this mode of trying to shape culture and shape politics is that you immediately from the jump are beholden to special interest groups. And then point number three is that this idea that you can like manufacture political influencers kind of misses the point of why those bro podcasters swung the election for Trump, which is that they're not political influencers. They're just guys who talk into microphones who have millions of fans who just had Donald Trump on their show and their fans listen to them. Not to like knock what we do, but I'm like, the people that listen to our shit probably care about politics more than like your average person does. We aren't reaching the swing voter.

[A]

You know, I think to add to that, I understand that there is a desire to mirror what is a very, very well funded infrastructure on the right. Like that is absolutely true. It is true that people on the right, billionaires, are, are absolutely funding the extension of these networks. Charlie Kirk, astroturfed. Right, Astroturfed by a billionaire. But I think that what this misunderstands is two things. Number one, you cannot buy talent. And number two, most people in the manosphere are just guys talking. The people who are like Charlie Kirk, who really were astroturfed and did kind of become a farmed operation, what they had that Democrats don't have was an ideology. So they basically had a Google Doc outline of. Here is what you are going to argue. Here is what your personality is going to be. Here is what your set of beliefs are. Democrats don't have that right at this point. It's kind of famously a joke that Democrats cannot describe what they want to be. They can only describe what they do not want to be. And so it felt perfectly to, to me in that article that they're only capable of describing the influencers. They don't want. They don't want Hall Monitor style Democratic politics. They don't want to turn off younger audiences, but they have no fucking clue what turns on younger audiences. Or if they do, they are not willing to say it publicly.

[B]

Diabolical lies. No, I'm just kidding.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And even on the Charlie Kirk thing, per the Womanosphere episode, we have reason to believe that much of the fan base that was bought in ideologically was essentially at this women's conference, for example, paid to be there or flown in for free. I don't know how organic a lot of that was. And I think the fact that, like, we see those clip farming outrage bait. His stuff on YouTube got a lot of views, sure. But, like, we don't really know what. How that translated to actual electoral success like that. That evidence to me is just not as clear as, like, when you look at.

[A]

And there's a lot of incentive to elevate his legacy right now.

[B]

I really just think we'd be talking about Charlie Kirk's influence very, very differently had he not been killed. I think that there were a lot of people who, when that happened, didn't even know who he was. Whereas if Joe Rogan were killed, would have been like, oh, my God, Joe. Like, you know who Joe Rogan is. And so I think, again, if your message is so specific and ideological and political, your base is naturally going to be much smaller than if your message is. I don't know. I just talk to people that want to come on my podcast and talk to me.

[A]

Yeah, completely. So again, we have a Democratic Party. They're lost in the wilderness. They claim to want to talk about economic populism. They claim to be ready to consider the economic issues that Americans are facing. They're ready to take on influencers, the means of production.

[B]

No, oh, wait, no, not that. Not that part.

[A]

The Democratic Party is ready to talk about moderate tax reform, and they want influencers to help them do that. So let's talk about chorus for a second. Katie, do you want to describe the Chorus Creators Fund?

[B]

Not at all. Yeah, I don't want to do that even a little bit. Can we phone a friend?

[A]

Yeah. This was a very dramatic event that happened last summer. The TLDR on this is that the journalist Taylor Lorenz released a report in Wired about the Chorus Creators Fund. Chorus is a nonprofit as described by the New York Times, but that it was funded by essentially a dark money liberal group, which is called the 1630 Fund. Dark money means that you don't have specifics about who's funding it. They don't have to release reports. You don't know who's funding it. You don't know if it's corporations, you don't know if it's billionaires, whatever. This became a whole thing. So the influencers who were accused of being a part of this alleged group and being paid upwards of 8k a month to amplify Democratic messaging, they essentially accused Taylor Lorenz of lying, of offering a number of factual errors, and of essentially having a kind of vendetta against them. They also insisted that none of this was, in fact, a secret and that all of it was out in the open and, you know, in opposition. Taylor stood by all of her reporting. The last I checked, Wired has not made any massive corrections to the originally reported piece, which makes me think that for whatever reason, whether, you know, they. They couldn't or they didn't want to, the influencers did not provide, like, actual factual evidence that disputed her reporting. But the part of this drama that's relevant to what we're talking about is how it became a whole debate, really, not just whether it matters that these people were, you know, given gag orders, Were they allowed to talk about Gaza? Who was paying for them? What policies were they being paid to amplify, but whether it matters if people on the left are being paid. And there was this whole conversation of, like, 100%. Yeah, like. Like, why should we even care? Why should we care that people on the left are being paid?

[B]

Yeah, it's like, well, the right does this all the time.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

I mean, I just said, yeah, you have $70 million. Just go fucking buy the Congress.

[A]

People.

[B]

Like, who cares? I'm certainly not above fighting dirty. But I think, again, to me, it comes back to the second point that I made, which if you don't know where the money is coming from, you don't know who is actually driving the ship here and whose agenda this ultimately serves, which feels. Which feels relevant.

[A]

Yeah. I think it wouldn't surprise anyone who listens to this podcast that you and I probably believe it's perfectly relevant to know if an influencer is being paid on either side of the spectrum by a lobbying group. But the point is that these influencers in this program have since gone on and are currently some of the most significant ones that are kind of anointed and supported by the Democratic Party. So these are the influencers that I guess we could say the Democratic Party has been looking for. Right. These are the ones who are spreading the message. So I want us to watch, like, a minute or so of a few of these influencer clips.

[B]

Dude, you're gonna get us.